Carrie James: Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap

Excerpt

In Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap, James aims to illustrate how youth think and behave on issues involving dilemmas that arise in using the Internet—privacy, property, and participation issue. To clearly illustrate youth’s perspectives on online issues, James and her research team conducted interviews with 143 youth and adults. They targeted 10–25 years olds, classifying them into three age groups: young adults, teens, and “tweens” (defined as 10–14 years olds). James articulates some of the concepts that are necessary to think about youth online behaviors (i.e., thinking types and thinking gaps). In short, there are “blind spots” and “disconnects” that prevent youth from considering moral or ethical dimensions of their online activities. She looks at these three separate topics in which youth often fall into dilemmas and discusses how they perceive and deal with each of them. From those responses, she identifies when and how youth engage in self-focused, moral, or ethical ways of thinking about how to deal with each topic. These steps eventually lead to where the gaps occur and how, and then to considering a possible remedy to narrow those gaps, which could be valuable for adults who are interested in mentoring youth toward using more socialized online conducts. …